Play tighter against big raises they tell me.

I would fold A9s, KTs, and AJo without any hesitation in this spot. I would call 77.

76s is borderline and would depend on the postflop tendencies of everyone else in the hand including the blinds. If I thought the blinds were so loose that they’d call with a lot of suited trash that could have my spades dominated, I’d fold that too.

I think it is much more helpful to think about ranges, equity and implied/reverse implied odds in general to guide decisions rather than specific holdings and some cookbook strategy.

Firstly, 15 is not really a huge raise size at 1/3. It’s standard in many games.

Questions you should be asking yourself when someone opens “large” are

- what is their range (and is their sizing influenced by specific hand types in their range)?
- how do they respond to 3-bets?
- will I be in position on the raiser?
- what will the SPR roughly be OTF if I flat? 3-bet and get called?
- does my hand/position benefit from that SPR?

There are obviously other considerations especially if other players have entered the pot, etc.

The bottom line is that H may want to play the same hand differently against the same opening raise size depending on the raiser’s tendencies and the position of the raiser and H.

To address your example, a TAG’s UTG opening range is very strong and regardless of raise size, we should avoid playing hands likely to be dominated unless they have nut-making potential assuming adequate stack depth.

If people are just opening big with a wide range then you can 3bet all of those hands, at least some of the time.
If there is a lot of limping and you keep getting unlucky when you have a "playable" hand, where someone raises who often limps ... then take a breath and fold a lot, it's the best and most profitable exploit.

If they like to call 3bets you can just 3bet to 95 and see what they do. Then try 125, if they still call.

Calling 77 mainly for set value is whatever.

Calling A9s/KTs/76s is whatever, depending on how others are playing. IMO A9s is the best call, with the assumptions that the blinds will almost never fold because you'll hit nut hands vs. lots of people. KTs/76s play much better HU.

against a TAG with your stack id call 77 and fold everything else except maybe A9s if the blinds are bad.

like 200bb deep you can 3b with more hands like suited connectors, assuming you know how to play vs UTG's range. the goal with 3b is to get it HU and then push UTG out of the pot on unfavorable boards.

also yes buy for the max, if you want to get better dont handcuff yourself, even if you take lumps. i sucked at first too but you get better.

It's notable that UTG is a TAG and not an OMC, which means he's probably RFIng around 10%, i.e., something like 77+, KQo, QTs, ATs. If he's not 4betting enough, which is probably the case, you can 3bet all of these hands. I'm not saying you should 3bet them ALL the time, but it should an action you ALWAYS consider, particularly with AJ, KTs and 76s. I'm assuming that the loose blinds don't 4bet squeeze much either. If you bought in for $500 then 3betting makes more sense as well as calling 77 or perhaps A9s. Reasons for not calling with these hands would be if the blinds squeeze at a relatively high frequency or it's a table dynamic and/or where your image makes it tougher to get value with your nutted hands (eg. sets and nut flushes) postflop. I assuming the cap on the rake is not exorbitant.

Calling with all is fine, I’d 3bet K10s and maybe 76s and 77s depending on the table

The loose CO cold caller makes this much more attractive to squeeze than to overcall. As a headline I'd say these hands are all OK to squeeze some of the time...but if you're squeezing them all 100% then you're almost certainly squeezing too wide.

A9s sounds nice to play as a call...but do you think UTG is putting in any money multiway OOP when the flop comes Ace-high unless he has an Ace which dominates yours? Of course there are RIO complications when you get called and hit an Ace, but in general you're going to have more playability.

The only hand I'd be happy to overcall with would be 77 and balance be blowed. AJo would be a disastrous overcall.

I don't think there are any hard and fast rules here but I'd probably do something along the lines of

A9s: fold 50-70%, squeeze 30-50%
77: fold 0-50%, overcall 0-70%, squeeze 0-50%
KTs: fold 0-40%, squeeze 60-100% (overcall is also acceptable)
76s: fold 60-80%, squeeze 20-40%
AJo: fold 60-80%, squeeze 20-40%

Those aren't meant to be any sort of pseudoscientific numbers, just rough approximates. As long as you're doing more folding than anything else and less calling than anything else you can't go far wrong with these hands

If you can do anything like this, gg 😉

Hugely instructive posts. Thanks so much.

The information given is insufficient to give any real guidance. Almost nobody is a TAG at low stakes by a classical definition. Unless the villain is positionally unaware, their range should be small in the UTG. About 15% overall, with the UTG being about 7%. And AG means they should be raising when opening 3 times as often as they are calling. The next piece of information is how often will the fold to a 3 bet. If you are 3betting with the hands listed, you mainly want to see a fold pf. Finally, you want to know how sticky they are with TP.

In short, don't three bet light unless you know the villain well in this situation.

If you're "still not good at this game" you should consider buying in for less (where the decisions are a lot easier), not more (where you really need to know what you're doing deep). I purposely sit on $200 in my 1/3 NL game for this reason.

As for the examples, if the blinds are loose/passive I wouldn't hate a call with A9s. Probably always flatting 77 here. I'd honestly fold all the rest, but maybe that's why I intentionally shortstack.

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